Praying for Rain or Clear Skies and Water Resources Control by Local Governments in the Tang Dynasty: Focusing on the Stone Inscriptions at the Temples of Spring Deities.
The local governments of the Tang Dynasty usually erected temple steles after their prayers for rain or clear skies had been answered. The inscriptions have some commonalities in text creation, that is, advocating deities and praising benevolent governance. However, this is only one aspect of the me...
| Publicado en: | Frontiers of History in China Vol. 21; no. 2; pp. 156 - 186 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Higher Education Press Limited Company
Jun2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=195121586&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 195121586 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 16733401 3CPF jtl: Frontiers of History in China issn: 16733401 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jun2026 vid: 21 iid: 2 pid: 68417 pub: Higher Education Press Limited Company artinfo: ui: 195121586 10.3868/s020-021-026-0006-5 ppf: 156 ppct: 30 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 13.7MB tig: atl: Praying for Rain or Clear Skies and Water Resources Control by Local Governments in the Tang Dynasty: Focusing on the Stone Inscriptions at the Temples of Spring Deities. aug: au: XIA, Yan affil: Key Research Institute of Social History of China, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, China sug: keyword: local governments praying for rain or clear skies spring water Tang Dynasty temple steles ab: The local governments of the Tang Dynasty usually erected temple steles after their prayers for rain or clear skies had been answered. The inscriptions have some commonalities in text creation, that is, advocating deities and praising benevolent governance. However, this is only one aspect of the meanings that the temple steles are intended to express. In fact, literary creation cannot truthfully reflect the complex historical phenomena. There should be a certain historical particularity hidden in those structural words of the narrative. Taking the stone inscriptions at the temples of spring deities as an example, these stone inscriptions reflected such a historical fact: in order to protect the important spring water resources under its jurisdiction, the local governments took advantage of the local people's strong devotion to the spring deities and completed the protection and control of spring water resources indirectly through praying for rain or clear skies, establishing temples, and erecting steles. The ritual of praying for rain or clear skies is the appearance, but the protection of water resources is the truth. Stone inscriptions played a crucial role in ensuring the long-term viability of these implicit protective measures. The inscriptions not only describe the efficacy of prayers and benevolent governance of the officials according to the narrative structure of temple steles so as to achieve the purpose of advocating deities and praising officials but also selectively represent the concept of official control and grand ceremonies at that time through words. The erection of temple steles reflects the interplay between local government authority and popular devotion during the Tang Dynasty. As an important means for local governments to achieve regional governance, it exhibits the distinct characteristics of the time. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Frontiers of History in China is the property of Higher Education Press Limited Company and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Frontiers of History in China holder: Higher Education Press Limited Company dt: @attributes: year: 2026 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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